Event based messaging
Use NHS Notify to send messages to patients and the public when a specific event is triggered in your organisation or service.
Examples of event based messaging
When an event is triggered you could use NHS Notify to automatically send:
- appointment reminders
- booking confirmations
- test results
What features you can use
Find out what features you can and cannot use when you send event based messages with NHS Notify.
Integration method
| Integration method | Included |
|---|---|
| NHS Notify API (recommended) | |
| NHS Notify MESH |
Message channels
| Message channel | Included |
|---|---|
| NHS App messages
Includes push notifications that are sent between 6am and 10pm to support sociable hours
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| Emails | |
| Text messages (SMS) | |
| Letters
Uses NHS Notify's standard letter specification
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Additional letter formats
| Additional letter format | Included |
|---|---|
| Braille | |
| Large print | |
| Audio CD | |
| Letters in other languages |
Learn more about accessible formats and letters in other languages.
Writing messages
| Feature | Included |
|---|---|
| Templates
Send the same thing to lots of people without writing a new message each time
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| Free-text input
Use free-text inputs in your own software to write messages
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| Personalisation
Add details like your recipients name, appointment times or reference numbers to your messages
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| Sender name
Tell recipients who your messages are from
Find out how to tell recipients who your messages are from
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Sending messages
| Feature | Included |
|---|---|
| Automatic contact look up (mandatory)
NHS Notify automatically finds and uses your recipients contact details from their NHS number
|
|
| Rate limiting
Set how many messages are sent per second to control how often recipients access your service, also known as
transactions per second (TPS)
|
Up to 5TPS |
| Routing plans
Use routing plans to decide how messages will be sent to your recipients and in what orders.
You can send event based messages in the following ways:
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| Fallback rules
The rules that trigger when a fallback is used for each message channel in a routing plan
All digital message channels will immediately fallback to the next channel if its rejected or an 'unnotified' status is received. The following fallback rules will apply to message channels used in your routing plans: NHS App messages will fallback to the next channel when:
Emails and text messages will fallback to the next channel if they are not delivered after 72 hours Letters do not have any fallback rules as they’re always sent last in routing plans for transactional messages. |
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| Parallel send
Send two or more messages at the same time to a recipient
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| Recipients you cannot message
NHS Notify prevents you from sending messages to specific recipients to make your messaging more effective
You cannot send event based messages to recipients with:
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Message performance and charging
| Feature | Included |
|---|---|
| Power BI reporting
See how your messages are performing over time with our Power BI dashboards
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| Real time message status callbacks
Receive real time updates every time the status of a message changes
|
API only |
| Quarterly billing
Pay for the messages you send every quarter with cross charging
Find out how to pay
|
Using the NHS App for patient journeys
When you send event based messages with the NHS App, you must adhere to the following in your user journeys:
- any links should only open a patients web browser
- links should only take patients to web content such as your website, NHS.UK or other relevant web pages
- do not include links that open other mobile applications
See what’s next for NHS Notify
If you’re thinking of using NHS Notify for event based messaging but cannot find the features you need, read our roadmap to find out what we’re working on next.